Moving to a new city? You are required to submit proof within 3 months.

As per the new guidelines of RBI (Reserve Bank of India), in case an individual is moving to a new city, they are required to submit proof of their new address by providing Passport, Driving license, or Voter ID Card, within three months of opening a bank account.

Ministry of Finance has notified this new rule as a result of change in the anti – money laundering rules which mandates five specific documents to be the proof of present address that a customer is required to submit to a bank branch in order to open a new account.

A notification issued by the Revenue Department of the Finance Ministry on June 1st this year list five officially valid documents – passport, driving license, voter’s identity card, job card issued by NREGA signed by an officer of the State government, letter issued by the National Population Registrar containing details of name and address — that can be accepted by banks as proof of present, or current, address.

This Step has been taken as per the Prevention of Money Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rule, 2005 which is now called Prevention of Money Laundering (Maintenance of Records), Second Amendment Rules, 2017.

This new rule is going to create a fuss amongst people who changes cities frequently due to job purpose.

However, RBI is yet to come up with the operational guidelines, even six months since government has released the notification, where usually government issue the operational guidelines within days after a notification comes out.

According to sources, central bank has forwarded this issue to the government, underlining the difficulties that would be faced by the citizens.

In response to that, government has provided a three – month window for the account holder to act in accordance to the norm.

At the moment, individuals moving to a new city and opening a new bank account are required to submit a proof of identity and proof of address. There are six valid documents for proof of identity – passport, driving license, voter’s identity card, PAN card, Aadhaar card and NREGA job card.

And for proof of address, individuals can submit documents such as rent agreement and utility bills as instructed by the RBI.